A Grand Opening

Before I tell y'all about all the stuff I gots to tell you, I just wanna say hi to my fan base, which, according to my estimates is all the way up to three now. And at least one of them fellas or ladies is married, and he's a fella. Unless he's a lesbian, then he's a she and she's a lady. If that's the case, though, she must live in Massachusetts, cause he or she has a wife. Regardless, hello people, thanks for reading, it makes it easier to write on a Sunday morning if I know someone's going to read all the drivel I'm spewing here.

Anyway, the body shop finally opened on Friday. It woulda likely been opened a month ago, but, in a fit of frustration at havin to drive down to the donut king every couple of days because donuts turn to bricks so quickly and because I can't live without my morning donut and coffee, I said to the squimonks that it sure would be nice to have a donut shop closer. So, a couple of them fellas, or ladies, I don't ask, decided they should just add a donut shop onto the body shop. They had to tinker some with donut recipes, but they finally nailed it and made the perfect maple long john. So, now I gots myself two businesses to pretend to run. It's tough, but I'm managing to get through it. I'm still tryin to figure out how donuts are gonna help us fight ninjas. I suppose that, if they get hard enough, we could throw them at the ninjas, or maybe build us a ninja jail out of old donuts. I've heard, though, that ninjas are good at escapin places, and I'm just not sure old donuts make a really secure jail. Of course, I've never seen a ninja eat a donut, so maybe donuts are like ninja kryptonite. That'd probably be too convenient.

Anyway, on Friday, I got myself some balloons and streamers and whatnot, then I put an ad in the paper lettin everyone know I was open for business and everything. It was a pretty big ad with my picture in it. It said, "Friday, why go out shoppin for all that stuff you don't really need anyway? In this economy, it may be better just to go have a donut and maybe get that fender fixed from when you hit that deer a couple of years ago. We know you were gonna do it yourself, but you haven't yet, have you? You don't even have a rubber mallet. We have rubber mallets, though, and other stuff to fix your car up. We'll make sure all your doors are the same color, too. You can even have a donut while you wait. If that sounds good to you, come on down to the Grand Opening of Pat O'Neil's Body Shop, Refurbished Car Emporium and Donut Eatery. Friday will have a bunch of specials, many of which I haven't thought of yet, but there will probably be free donuts involved in there somewhere."

Now, that may not be the catchiest ad ever written, but you gotta know your audience. And, knowing the people around here, there's nothin they like more than free donuts. That ad worked, too. In fact, Frank brought it with her when she came to the opening. She even showed it to me. Of course, what she said was, "Are you an idiot? Why the hell would you write an ad like that?" All I could say to her was, "People like free donuts."

"Are you kidding me?" she said, "Why are you opening a body shop of all things. I've known you all your life, and I've seen you work on cars. You been drivin that rickety truck around for nigh on 15 years now with it painted four colors of primer. What makes you think you can run a body shop?" After this tirade, she seemed a little out of breath, so she had to sit down for a bit. I gotta say, I was a little dizzy, too. I mean, she was right, what do I know about running a body shop and donut eatery? But then I remembered that the whole business was fake anyway, so I was OK.

"You know, Frank," I told her, "I been workin on my skills. In fact, I got that truck all fixed up and I did it myself."

She didn't believe me, so I took her out to show her Mable Lou, all cleaned up and beautiful. You couldn't even tell that she had been flipped upside down, torn apart by a town truck, rebuilt and then had a flaming couch fall through the bed. She looked better than new. When she saw Mable Lou, Frank was aghast.

"You did that?" she asked, unbelieving.

"Sure did, all by myself, too," I told her.

"The sparkling flames, the chromed tailpipes, the cow horns on the front, Pat O'Neil's Body Shop, Refurbished Car Emporium and Donut Eatery hand-stitched in the white leather of the steering wheel? You did all of that by yourself?"

"You betchya," I told her.

"Where did you learn to do all of that? Two months ago, I woulda sworn you were incompetent to pee standing up, and now you're telling me you did all of this by yourself?"

"Yeah, I sure did," I told her, "I been taking on-line classes and listening to a lot of Car Talk lately. And I been watching some cooking shows, and that's why I'm doing the donuts, too." So, it was all wrapped up in a neat little package.

Then, she looked me right in the eyes with all the understanding a big sister has to offer and told me, with caring and honesty, "You're full of horse crap! What's really going on here?"

"Honest injun!" I told her, "I ain't lying about nothing!"

"BS," she shot back, "I know you're lyin because you always start usin your g's again when you are. What's the story here?"

Well, I couldn't tell her, so I spun some story about something, I don't recall very well now. It's really all a blur. There was something about aliens takin my brain and replacing it with that of a much more motivated man and something about a French chef dying in my arms and passing on to me his recipe for a perfect long john so that humanity did not lose out by not being able to eat the perfect donut. It was a yarn and we both knew it, but I think I distracted her enough to get her to go home. I think she'll be back, though.

After Frank left, the grand opening went great. I had about 20 customers. All of 'em apparently hit a deer a couple of years back and had always meant to fix their fenders themselves, but had never even bought rubber mallets. Like I said, know your audience.